Author
Topic: GE Starting guide - for new players (Read 6465 times)

zstk42

Hi and welcome to the game. This guide aims at getting new players into this game, explaining the main features and the most effective ways of progressing into your early stages. I always see the same questions being asked around here by new players every now and then so I decided to compile a list of most questions asked:

What is Granado Espada?

GE is an MMORPG that features some unique traits in gameplay, the main one being the ability to control up to 3 characters simultaneously (multi-character control, or MCC). Not only that, but there is also a large selection of classes to choose from in your team (up to 75+ as of late), allowing for endless possibilities in PvP or PvE. Another uncommon feature is the ability for automated combat: characters are able to fight weak monsters on their own, allowing the user to slowly progress in levels despite being away from the game. This will not be a replacement for active farming, raiding or questing, but it’s a good alternative to progress for those that can’t devote as much time playing.

So what classes are there? What are stances?

Initially, you can only create a team using 5 starting classes, while the rest becomes available as you progress in quests. Stock characters tend to be the most flexible, being able to adapt to many different situations while recruited NPCs tend to be more specialized in particular weapons, stances or roles. Stances generally define your combat style and abilities. Each class has their set of useable stances for different weapons, and each stance usually gives you access to 4-5 skills to use as well as a defined set of stats and attack animation. There can be several useable stances for the same weapon for some classes, so switching them around is generally useful depending on what you need. Each class is characterized by their stat distribution, their available stances and their personal/job skill. Each class has its own personal skill, which is basically a skill that can be used from any of their stances.

The 5 stock classes are as follows:Fighter – Your typical melee warrior. Stock fighters can use a wide array of different weapons and stances, allowing them to plan ahead for different situations. They can both tank and deal considerable damage to all armor types and their versatility allows them to fit into literally any team. Fighter weapons include swords, daggers, sabres, pistols, polearms, greatswords, rapiers, blunts, shields and javelins.

Musketeer – A ranged damage dealer class that primarily relies on guns. Musketeers are vulnerable up-close but make up for it with great single target damage from long range (as typical archers). They are excellent boss-killers and can quickly dispose of monsters with their strong attacks as well. Musketeer weapons include pistols, rifles and bayonets.

Wizard – Wizards are the masters of utility. They have access to several AOE skills as well as many protective buffs for their allies and deadly debuffs for their enemies. They are a balanced class that is effective both offensively and defensively. In later stages they are also able to fight airborne, staying out of harm of melee attackers, granting them unparalleled survival in some situations. Wizards can use either rods or staffs for their stances.

Elementalist – Elementalists are the proverbial glass cannons of the game. They are able to deal amazing damage, especially to several enemies at once but are also very squishy and slow in some of their stances. Their stance selection gives them the choice of fire, ice or lightning spells which can be drastically effective against certain enemies depending on magic vulnerabilities. Elementalists use different attribute bracelets in their wrists for each magic type as weapons.

Scout – Unlike the name suggests, Scouts are mostly useful as a healing support rather than as spike damage dealers. They are able to keep their party alive via healing spells, and can cast several useful buffs for both offense and defense in their group. A must-have for any starting team, since they will both enable your team to afk-level (with autoheal) and can be incredibly useful as a back-up healer when engaging on several enemies at once. They can also revive fallen characters, which is important as you stop automatically spawning after level 51. Scout weapons mostly include daggers or rosarios (for high level support stances).

Which classes should I chose as a first team?

Here are a few teams I consider optimal for a starting player. Other teams not listed here can work too, and you can always level new characters up to experiment, obviously, but these groups will give you the most versatility and effectiveness as far as early-game goes:

Fighter Musketeer Scout – a good mix of single target damage and durability. You may not level up as fast as some teams out there but this gives you a lot of tools to adjust to different zones, and most importantly boss fights in which this team shines at.

Fighter Elementalist Scout – a balanced setup, and particularly useful for active leveling since you have good AOE ability and lots of versatility with stances and weapons.

Fighter Wizard Scout - this team isn't as offensive as the previous one, but it is very safe and has a lot of tools in their disposal. It still levels up fairly fast but keep in mind that you will have relatively low dps outside skills

Musketeer Wizard Scout – an offensive-minded team that has very strong ranged presence, both single target and AOE. In this team, the wizard acts as a secondary support at keeping the musketeer alive (especially with Levitation), but if executed properly has one of the fastest leveling speeds out there, both actively and afk).

Wizard Elementalist Scout – a full caster team. Squishy team but has incredible crowd control and mass damage potential. The only downfall is that casters are typically subpar for afk leveling, so despite being extremely strong for clearing dungeons and missions actively, don’t expect to progress much while away from the game with this team.

So now I have my team – what should I do?

Farming vs Questing: As a new player, it will be in your best interest to complete quests and exple new maps. Quests don’t reward you with a lot of experience in this game but they will give you useful items to purchase equipment and advance with the storyline, giving you access to new maps and instances, so it’s recommended for you to complete all Scenario quests as you receive them. Remember to take repeatable quests from Pioneering merchants in most zones for extra EXP cards (always accept quests from the same pioneering faction (Vent, Magia or Tempestar) otherwise your favour rate will be heavily penalized). Some quests will also reward you with NPC cards, which allows you to create different classes to play with later on.

As your family reaches level 4, there is an on-going event that rewards you 3 Master cards. I strongly recommend to NOT use them in your starting characters at all and save them for later instead, as jumping to max level with no valid equipment, stances, completed quests and knowledge of the game will severely gimp you to the point where you’ll just be forced to start over again because your team is unable to achieve anything endgame under those circumstances. Save them in your warehouse, they will be very useful later on for when you want to powerlevel new classes you wish to use.

Equipment: You can get new equipment for your characters in several ways. The most common one is from monster drops. Monsters from 1~80 are likely to drop useful weapons and armors, many times with already good stats and enchants in them. Area bosses are also a good source of equipment drops so make sure to hunt them every time you find one. You can also buy blank Pioneering equipment from town merchants using Shiny Crystals. These are common drops from low level monsters and are also part of several quest rewards. There are new tiers of Pioneering items every 20 levels (1-20-40-60-80). However, you can expect many monster drops to outperform these items as you progress. Another way to get good equipment is by completing Bounty Hunter missions (starting from level 50-60 onwards). You are going to need help from other players to clear these missions, but the boss drops usually reward you Elite equipment that is basically the best you can possibly get for a certain level range. Elites tiers come at levels 12-28-36-52-68-84. There are also Unique weapons that are come with in-built mods and can be stronger than certain Pioneer weapons as well. Another way to get equipment is by trading with other players or using the Market Manager. You can also sell unwanted items to others for some extra Vis in the Market.

Where to level up? I'm lost.

You will normally want to level up in zones where monsters meet your level range. It’s not very effective to stay in the same zone for too long as levels come quickly early on, unless you’re trying to AFK-level. In this case, you will want to fight weaker monsters to make sure your family doesn’t die from them while you’re away. By opening the world map [ALT+W] you can see most field zones and their level ranges, and [ALT+Z] opens up the zone map so you can find your way to other maps or monsters.

Here is a breakdown for the most popular maps for each level range up to level 100. For the record, the level cap in this game is 130, and 1-100 is generally your ‘early-game’ as far as end-game content goes:

1-10: Stone Pit and Ferrucio Junction should be where your journey starts. There are plenty of quests to do here, and plenty of space to get yourself a nice spot. Monsters don’t really hurt much at this stage so it doesn’t really matter what team or weapons you’re using for the most part. Make sure to pick up Copper Pieces especially, as they sell well in the market for some extra income.

11-20: At this stage you will want to move on to the Al Quelt Moreza dungeon. It has several floors and several quests to complete here, and the place is generally very mobby with a good spawn rate so make sure you have some good AOEs available with your stances to clear rooms faster.

21-25: Depending on what quests you’re doing, you are likely to go to either Cathari Falls, Kings Garden or Tetra Ruins. The monsters are generally stronger here, and run away at low health so you’ll have to move around often.

26-35: Tetra Corridor and Catacomb are your best spot. The spawn rates are quite good in these maps, but many monsters fly and will be out of reach for melee characters. Landing Provoke with your fighter pulls them down so make sure to use it often. All monsters in these zones are Demon type, so if you can get some weapons with additional demon damage, that would be great. This zone drops a lot of Steel Pieces and Cabosse which are usually in demand in the market, too.

36-40: Jezebel Glen has nice spawn rate and is an alternative for Tetra until you hit 40. You’ll have to move around for good spots, though.

41-50: Porto Bello zones are typically the best leveling spots for this level range. The dungeon is especially very mobby and has considerable spawn, so you’ll have to be careful not to lure too many mobs. Casters tend to fare well here, and so do light weapon users (daggers, sabers, knuckles). Shiny Crystals are also abundant here.

51-59: There is a variety of places where you can go at this stage. El Lago de Tres Hermanas has good spawn rate under the trees, despite usually being crowded and Desolated Cliff is also an option around the Tomb with high spawn. Thurengwald is also a good place with weak monsters to AFK level if you wish. Another place worth noting is around Torsche Mansion. The monsters hit rather hard here due to magic attacks, but they drop lots of Otite Pieces which are constantly in demand as well. There are also several quests to complete in this area so you'll probably be staying here for a while. Pretty much every monster in Torsche is Golem race, so any weapons with this mod will be useful here.

60-75: There are many maps to choose from around this level range. Rion Plain is a great place to grind as the monsters spawn close to each other and very quickly. DPS teams fare well here due to the constant spawn, particularly with light/medium weapons. Underground Relics is also an option for power leveling, but the fastest zone is hands down Rion Hollow for playing actively. The massive spawn combined with small rooms and the amount of monsters makes for an incredibly fast (but dangerous) leveling experience. You are also likely to farm lots of equipment drops here to sell to NPCs or use yourself. Some people also like AFKing in Bahia beach or in the first level of Fire Island, which is usually a good source for enchant chips and alchemy materials (mostly recommended for ranged DPS teams, though). You can also find a group for Porto Bello and Torsche Bounty Hunter missions at this stage for better equip. You can also roam for the area boss in Bonavista in hopes of equipment drops and Shiny Crystals, since the map is pretty small. Weapons with +wildlife attack are particularly good for this level range.

76-79: This is when leveling starts slowing down a little. Joaquin Prison is okay, especially if you have heavy weapon users (i.e. polearms, 2h swords), but the constant box/barrel spawns make it very unreliable to AFK. Joaquin Plains have solid spawn rate and easy to reach repeatable memorial quests so it works well both for active and AFK leveling. However, you’ll have a hard time finding a place for yourself at the crossroads thesedays. You can roam around the second floor in Joaquin (the bridge) for the area boss in hopes of gear drops too. The zone is pretty small so he is generally easy to find.

80-84: There aren’t a lot of good places at this level range, but the best spawns are usually in Old Port of Coimbra, despite the lower level monsters. They do hurt a bit, and there is a roaming raid boss in the area so be wary of AFK’ing here for too long. Island of Fire might be hard in the second zone, but it’s definitely worth the key price both in drops and XP if you manage to survive. Unfortunately, Ustiur Zones are pretty bad for EXP with terrible spawn and scattered mobs so you are likely to only ever come there for quests.

85-91: The best active spot for this level range is in El Canon Diabolica. The place is both extremely mobby and has 3 good repeatable hunting quests, some rare valuable drops from monsters (whispers of devil, head of mantis) as well as a pioneering memorial for constant XP card farming. Any AOE team training mobs will fare well here, and due to the really low spawn and aggressive monsters, it’s quite mediocre for both DPS and AFK leveling in general. Fire Island is an option too, if you can survive it and so is Rio Albi if you don’t mind moving around. There's also an area boss that drops lv 92 uniques there.

91-100: At this point you have a lot more valid choices on where to go. Skeleton Dungeon is great if you are well equipped (monsters come in large numbers and knockdown a LOT, so you’ll have to stay active), and Topolo also works if you want some easier spots to lay back. The mobs are very weak here and you can AFK quite easily with reasonable gear. Higher floors of Skeleton Dungeon also work as you slowly make your way towards 100, despite their spawn rate being lower in general. You can also join other families for the Joaquin BH mission. Make sure you have 75 Shiny Crystals by the time you reach 100, so you can promote all your 3 characters to Veteran status. Veteran promotion gives 1 AR, 1DR, 1000 HP, 10 stat points to distribute as well as access to new stances.

*This should be most of what you need to know as you start out in this game. Things change a lot once you hit level 100 and promote to Veteran status, and you should make efforts in being social and finding a faction/friends as most content will be difficult to progress alone at this point. Have fun!

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